Posted: Thu 12 February, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, House Work, Own Business, Thoughts |
Is it really geeky to be interested in getting one of these as and when they’re released in the UK?
Basically, it’s an extension of the cellular (mobile) network, connected through broadband, and allowing improved mobile access in phone blackspots. Like – well – our entire house/street.
Yes, geeky as all hell, but still I can see plenty of use for it just where we live…
Posted: Wed 4 February, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Agency Idiocy, Own Business, Work-related |
Just received this from an IT agency – nothing like short notice, I suppose…
I need a contract PHP Developer for a 3-week contract in [Deepest Darkest Essex]. The role involves building a new website for a school.
Work onsite at first but home working is also offered.
Candidates are required to interview today and it is an immediate start.
So – not overly realistic, although I suppose there might be a local developer who’s in need of immediate work…
Posted: Fri 30 January, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: @Media2009, Getting Organised, Own Business, Web Development, Work-related |
I’ve written many times about the @Media conference, which is one I always look forward to and attend when I can. I missed last years because we were travelling to Ireland on the Friday of the conference, so it wasn’t worth it.
This year it’s a bit later, on the 25/26th June at the South Bank Centre, which should be fun. I’ve never been there for conferences etc. before, so it’s another new place on the list.
Early-bird tickets (Two days for £299 plus VAT) went on sale last night, and I’m already booked in for it.
Happy, happy day.
Posted: Tue 20 January, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related |
At the moment, I’m a bit swamped on the ideas front. It’s not an unusual occurrence, to be honest – but it means I’m trying to stick with some vague kind of prioritisation (is that a word?) in order to get things done, and to get those ideas out into the real world.
At the same time, there’s also several ongoing projects for clients as well, which makes things slightly more interesting. I’ve been working through those as well (and there’s at least one still waiting that I should have completed a long time ago) because they’re paying jobs, whereas the ideas I’ve got may make money, but certainly won’t do so straight away – if ever, in fact.
I do like getting these ideas out of the way – and indeed, they’re all part of that much-mooted five-year plan I’ve been banging on about for the last two years or so – but I’d be just as happy to only have one idea at a time, rather than the four or five that are currently floating around at any given time. Sometimes, keeping track of them all isn’t exactly easy, although I don’t mind too much in general. I know that writing them down would be counter-productive (as I whittled about last week) so keeping them in my head is the best plan. After all, if I then forget them, the idea probably wasn’t worth that much in the first place.
The really frustrating/sad/geeky part is that when I get these ideas, they come fully equipped with database setups and tables as well. And that is just a sign that I really should be getting out one hell of a lot more…
Posted: Fri 2 January, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts, Work-related |
As well as the plan to do more “proper” writing in 2009, I’m also planning to make a change to my photography site.
With the NCFE course, I’ve started taking more photos – which was one of the main goals of starting the course – and it’s provided me with some motivation. And while the course is still ongoing, I’m also going to be aiming to put at least one new photo per week up on the photography site as well.
Now I know that “one photo per week” doesn’t sound like much – but right now I’d rather have quality than quantity, and have one decent photo per week than five or six ropy ones I’m not entirely happy with if I were doing a “one photo per day” project. I’ve got the greatest respect for the Project365 people who do undertake that challenge, but with the amount of things I’m currently doing, for me it just wouldn’t be practical. Besides, I know that as I got further behind on a “photo per day” project, I’d get more and more demotivated. (which may or may not be grammatical, but you get the idea)
The aim with a “photo per week” is just to keep on going, keep on going out and taking photos, with the aim of putting them up on the site. Of course, I’ve got to add in a couple of bits of code on the site in order to handle it, but that’s what Christmas/New Year is for, right?
Posted: Tue 23 December, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Own Business, Thoughts |
It’s interesting to see today that supposedly Whittards of Chelsea is apparently also close to going into administration. Following on as it does from yesterday’s news where Woolworths announced the full schedule for the closing of all their shops (come Jan 8th, they’ll all be closed) it’s interesting to see which other chains are apparently due up against the wall.
Personally, I’m not really surprised by Woolworth’s demise – I’m more surprised that they’ve hung on as long as they have, to be honest. They’ve tried for a long time the “stock a bit of everything” approach, and in face of competition from other stores (and particularly online stores for CDs, DVDs and games) well, it just really wasn’t a surprise.
For myself, I wouldn’t be surprised to see WHSmiths go the same route as Woolworths during 2009 – again, they’ve got a huge amount of competition from the online stores for the great majority of their business. In fact, the only thing that you can get in WHSmiths that you can’t get online (for the most part) is magazines – and maybe greetings cards. Even most of the newspapers now carry an online version, which takes away yet more “core business”, although I guess there’ll be people who want to read papers “properly” for a while yet.
I wonder which other retailers will go to the wall in the current economic climate?
Posted: Mon 15 December, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Own Business, Work-related |
I don’t know exactly when the last time was that I didn’t write anything on D4D™ for a day – let alone two, as happened this weekend. But we should now be getting back to normal.
Basically, last week bordered on nightmarish, particularly with regard to work. We’d released the first application/module that I’d written, and while my side generally worked fine (a couple of bugs and issues, but nothing earth-shattering, or non-fixable) the customer side was a total hellhole, involving umpteen changes to the live data as they realised that their records were horrifically incorrect.
Let’s just say that during the course of the week, I amended at least 50% of their records, as more and more errors were found. It was that kind of week. My phone just didn’t stop ringing.
Now though, that module is over and done with, and it’s just about dealing with any further fallout.
But what with “normal” work being like that, and having a deadline on some private stuff that needed completing and releasing, I just didn’t have either the time or the inclination to write here as well. For once in my life, once I’d completed the work side of things, I just didn’t want to even look at a bloody computer.
Anyway, all’s done now, and normality is slowly resuming. (Thank Christ)
I’ve still got some bugs to fix, and more ongoing work, but the two big bits are out of the way for the moment. Happy, happy day.